


God Rest Ye Merry, Vandevere.

by RT Fice (RT_Fice)



Category: Dumbo 2019, Dumbo Live Action
Genre: Abusive Father, Christmas, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Origin Story, Revenge, victorian christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RT_Fice/pseuds/RT%20Fice
Summary: 1882 has been an extraordinary year for twelve-year-old V.A. Vandevere, and he hopes for a good Christmas, the first since he made the social transition from a boy to a man.  But the Vandevere's Christmas Eve get-together of attorneys from his father's law firm and noted people of New York City is threatened by his father's grim new acquaintance, banker J.G. Remington, and A.E. Vandevere's low opinion of his son's interest in circuses.  What happens sets V.A.'s ambitions and family dynamic for the rest of his life, even when he becomes the Mastermind of Dreamland.This is a prequel to my fic "Baby, Mine" and the origin story for my V.A.  It ends just before Chapter 1 of that story.The lines from the scene in V.A.'s office are taken verbatim from the film.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	God Rest Ye Merry, Vandevere.

**New York City, 1882.**

"Play in our guests, dear boy," chirped Mother.

With true pleasure V.A. Vandevere's fingers evoked the sweetest notes from the grand piano's keys, gentle, soothing, leisurely. The wives of the attorneys of his father's law firm smiled approvingly at his rendition of _God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen_. V.A. heard the front door's chime, the Steward's polished greeting, a man's rough grumble, and steps going to the other end of the house.

The living room was festooned with fragrant pine garlands interwoven with sprigs of crimson holly berries and paler red yew berries. A neglected spray of mistletoe dangled from the doorway. Ivy trailed along the mantelpiece, woven among the candlesticks. Delicate tapers perched on the long-needled boughs of the tree in the corner. Even now the footman, Sotheby, at seventeen five years older than V.A., was lighting them with care as gray dusk sank behind the homes and carriages arrived with more guests. The faceted leaded glass windows tickled the firelight, and it danced.

The boy longed to undo the stiff, starched collar of his white shirt and his red bow tie, but this couldn't be done with guests in the house or his father at home. Mother indulged him when he played, but not in this case. He'd removed his blue wool jacket and laid it on the piano bench, giving his arms more freedom of movement in just his shirt and gray vest. The ladies showed no indication that they considered it effrontery, and Mother was too occupied with being Hostess to protest.

V.A.closed his eyes and inhaled. The ladies' tasteful touches of French parfums mingled with the spiced scent rising from their cups of hot, mulled wine, the fragrance of slowly melting beeswax candles, and the ever so slight, crisp, charcoal smell of their burning wicks. A deeper breath as he moved into the second verse thrilled him with wisps of perspiration, the soft leather of the trim boots concealing the turn of their ankles, and their hair. At twelve V.A. was deeply Romantic for the beauty of the world, and the solace it gave him from his every day life.

As long as the men stayed in the Billiard Room, smoking, drinking, and gnawing on their conversation, V.A. could enjoy Christmas Eve.

"His talent is from _my_ side of the family." The highlights of Mother's bright blonde hair twinkled as she turned her head first left, then right, to address the ladies on the settee, loveseat, sofa, and Bergere. Her light laughter skipped over them as she added, "I don't know from _whom_ on my side. I'm useless with my hands," her long fingers fluttered in front of her for emphasis, "not that I _need_ them to _do_ anything, my darling husband says, 'Why do you need to _do_ anything?'" Her guests joined her in muted giggles about her absolute lack of purpose.

V.A. played a little louder. As he hoped, Mother quieted in order to listen.

A fore-running stink of whiskey ran ahead of footsteps, accompanied by his father's bellowing laugh. Setting his jaw, V.A. pressed on with _Good King Wenceslas_ , giving it a lively tempo.

"Ah!" A.E. Vandevere led the stolid-faced attorneys and business who were their clients into the room as if heading a procession. With a quick side-glance V.A. spotted the telltale shine of his ocean-blue eyes and dampness of his dark-chestnut goatee. Kind people noted Father's facial resemblance to the handsome, famed actor Edwin Booth, who, they didn't know, had coached A.E. to lose his working-class accent. Unkind people whispered that his temperament was more akin to Edwin's brother, John Wilkes.

A.E. swept his arm to indicate all the women seated about the room. "What a bouquet! _Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator."_

No one responded to his Shakespearean quote. The husbands paired with their wives, their glasses still in hand.

Smile tightening, A,E. said to his wife, "My fair dove, listening to this music I thought we had a _daughter_." He clamped his large hand on V.A.'s shoulder. The playing obediently ceased. Looking at all his guests the man chortled, "He has hands like his mother's, soft and well-manicured. To match his high grades and perfect diction." The square-tipped fingers dug into the boy's shirt. "I'm looking for an apprenticeship for him; he's of age. Something that will stiffen his spine. _Man's_ work." He turned to the gentleman behind him. "Such as banking, Mr. Remington!" With another broad gesture, Mr. Vandevere said to his wife, "My dove, let me introduce Mr. J.G. Remington, of Remington Bank & Trust! And his lovely new acquisition, _Mrs_. J.G. Remington!" He bowed low.

V.A. turned his head enough to see a man in his late forties, who hadn't yet removed his top hat or black wool topcoat with velvet collar. His black eyes and thick black eyebrows shaped impatience; his thin lips were compressed. His temples were dusted with gray.

Sotheby inquired about taking the man's hat and coat. With a dry snort the man removed them and dumped them in the young man's arms. "Your things," he barked at the young woman beside him. "Give them to him."

V.A.'s eyes widened as the girl, who had to be no older than Sotheby, gave the footman her white rabbit fur muff and matching stole. She was statuesque, with features like that of a Grecian sculpture of Leda. Her dark golden-brown hair was piled on her head. Her peach-colored, satin damask dress revealed generous decolletage, which made the boy, whose voice and body were changing, swallow. Mrs. Remington lowered her eyes demurely as Mrs. Felicity Vandevere greeted her and patted the place beside her on the settee. The girl obligingly perched there.

As subtly as he could, the boy looked from the young wife to her husband and back. V.A. was old enough to understand mismatched pairings of age and station; his own father's in-laws were not well pleased with their daughter lowering herself to a man with a career rather than wedding a Gentleman. He'd often heard his mother and her friends gossip about young women who, lacking money or beauty, were fated to lives of servitude. The unfairness of it stuck in the boy's craw, and made him self-conscious when he was referred to as "handsome for his age." He couldn't know this girl's background, and wouldn't be so gauche as to inquire. But, to reconcile Mrs. Remington's joining with a man so much older, V.A. chose to believe she'd been from a poor family, and Mr. Remington had wooed and won her, and was generous with her and all her relatives. Or, more Romantically, as he had a fondness for Horatio Alger's Rags-to-Riches boys' books because they echoed his own father's upward rise, V.A. decided Mrs. Remington was an orphan whose loveliness, humility, and fortitude had attracted the older man's attention, and he'd saved her from a future of grueling labor.

Remington's rough, snide voice brought V.A. out of his imagination. "This one? He works for you?" Mr. Remington asked one the firm's senior partners, jutting his thumb to indicate V.A.'s father.

"He's an Associate, yes," Mr. Taft replied, without enthusiasm.

"I am ever at your service." The host proffered a crystal aperitif glass filled with liquid that shone lemon with the flames of the fireplace behind it.

"This place is yours? On an Associate's salary?" The banker took the glass, sniffed it, swallowed its contents whole, and held it out expectantly.

"From _my_ family, Mr. Remington," said V.A.'s mother from the settee.

"But I _do_ keep my dear wife in the luxury to which she is accustomed, sir." The senior Vandevere's teeth clenched ever so slightly as he refilled the banker's glass. " _Her family_ doesn't pay the bills."

"Could we have more playing, please?" Mrs. John D. Rockefeller sounded bored. Her husband glanced at the mantelpiece clock.

"It was one thing when he was a lad, but he's out of short pants now." A.E. tugged on his son's shirt, forcing him upright. "Stand up. Put your jacket on like a man." V.A. did. "You spend too much time with women. Come."

The father shoved the son ahead of him. The pack of lawyers and bankers returned to the Billiard Room. They lit cigars and took tumblers filled with bourbon from the Steward.

A.E., in his trim, dark blue suit, ordered, "Set them up, boy."

V.A. considered asking which was he, a man or a boy, but he knew better when his father's breath was so potent. With expertise born of repetition, he set up the balls. His father played 8-ball pocket pool, a game he perfected in saloons, and which had helped finance his way through law school, but he refused to call it "pool" among such company as this. When his acquaintances of lower ranks were being entertained, having brought with them lots of homemade "spirits," V.A. noted his father's sleight of hand that left his guests with empty pockets and dark tempers. With these distinguished gentlemen, he restrained himself.

This time, the father thrust at his son a tumbler with a generous level of brown-gold liquor.

This was a first. V.A. knew several boys at school his age who imbibed regularly. 

"Did you hear that another state has passed an ordinance against the sale of liquors and wine to anyone under eighteen?" J.P. Morgan chalked his cue.

Remington snorted, examining the cues as if selecting a pistol for a duel. "This is what comes from women being given a say. If they have a chance they'll kill all enjoyment a man can have." He pulled a cue from the rack. "A wedding ring? It's a shackle. On a man's cock and balls."

V.A. started at the words.

"Temperance will never spread beyond where it is," stated Mr. Taft, a senior partner.

"Well, boy?" A.E. jabbed his son with his elbow. "Quaff it! _Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?_ " He laughed loudly.

There would be no getting round it. The boy managed it down in one giant swallow. He saw his father's eyes, sharp as ice shards, waiting for an explosion of coughs. _I'll be damned if I will._ Knowing such a thing would someday occur, the boy had practiced with glasses of Mother's hot camomile tea. He learned to open his throat like a pipe, allowing the liquid to pass straight down so quickly it didn't burn. The bourbon slipped directly to his gut without pause. V.A. met his father's eyes with a minimum of triumph and contempt.

"Bravo." Remington didn't sound completely contemptuous. "Rack the damn balls. Vandevere. You and me first."

"Sir."

Suppressing a grimace from the nausea induced by hard liquor on an empty stomach, V.A. placed the wooden triangle at the end of the table's green felt top and placed the balls within it. They remained in a perfect triangle when he lifted the rack.

Remington immediately grabbed the cue ball, lined it up, and poised to break the rack.

"So what does the boy _do_?" Mr. Calhoun, one of the firm's senior partners, ignored the etiquette of not speaking during the break. He exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke.

The father's laugh was far louder than necessary. The lawyers, being used to it at this time in any social gathering, ignored it. Remington raised his head and narrowed his eyes, assessing if this was an attempt to interfere with his concentration.

V.A. tried to decide where to look, the room being filled with large, imposing men. He focused on the glass eyes of the stuffed head of a ten-point buck his father hadn't killed, but bought to make the Billiard Room more manly.

"He makes excellent grades in English Literature and Greek Theater." A.E. sniggered. "What career he can make of _that,_ your guess is as good as mine."

Remington's shot cracked the triangle of balls apart.

A.E. swung his cue inches from his son. He stalked around the table like a fox searching for an opening in a hen house. "He has no friends. So he plays piano for women."

His jaw muscles bunching, V.A. spoke in a voice low for so early in the onset of puberty. There was no squeaking or breaking. "It makes them happy."

Remington chalked his cue with an automatic movement. "Huh. The only place a man should play piano for women is in a brothel." He chuckled at the tinge of pink that came to the boy's face. "Been to one of those yet? Eh?"

"His time's coming." His father made it sound like a threat.

As much as V.A. marveled at and found himself longing for a closer proximity to females, what went on between men and women remained a mystery he dared not ask even the coarsest boys at school, for fear of it somehow coming back to Mother. The last time he'd been at the zoo Mother had dragged him violently away when one monkey topped another and began strange movements. V.A. only knew that a brothel involved something that was never to be spoken of plainly, and Father always said the word in a way that it sounded as dirty as mucking a stall or cleaning the toilet, but necessary to become A Man.

Girls seemed to blossom into women like flowers. But boys seemed required to do things that evoked pain, killing, or unspeakable filth in order to become men.

"Stop dancing and shoot," snarled Remington at the elder Vandevere.

A junior partner, his hair parted in the center and plastered down, had an expression that hinted that he knew something about the rough and bared-teeth hierarchy of men, and that he himself had yet to draw blood in order to ride. He spoke directly to V.A. "What do you like to do, given time and opportunity?"

Buoyed by the kinder tone, V.A. immediately remarked, "The circus."

An infinitesimal sympathy rippled through the men, but quickly choked in the cigar smoke.

The junior partner, Lockwood, blurted with more excitement that he should, "Did you read about Jumbo?"

A.E. shot with fervor, but intentionally missed a pocket by an inch. Remington chortled.

V.A. brightened. "Read about him? I _saw_ him!"

The ship from England carrying P.T. Barnum's biggest elephant in the world arrived at midnight of Easter Sunday. Early the next morning, when he was supposed to go to church, V.A., who had a ravenous hunger for things larger, greater, and more spectacular than regular life, had, with Sotheby, snuck from the house to join the growing crowd at the dock. Sotheby, himself English, and having arrived in America only a year before on a similar ship, was, like most of his countrymen, indignant that Jumbo had been sold to the American circus, and wanted to see the creature since those in England no longer could. V.A., who was a natural mimic of accents, matched the young footman's, and both had passed themselves off well enough as English boys with relatives on the _Only Son_ to convince gawkers to let them slip to the front.

They waited until late in the afternoon. Finally, finally, a great wooden crate raised from the ship. Ten thousand people packed the dock, jostling to see better. V.A. and Sotheby climbed atop the wooden piling to which the ship's mooring lines were lashed. The boys stayed as the great crate was lowered onto a huge wagon.

V.A. was deaf to Sotheby's warning that they had stayed too long. He followed along the route as the crate was drawn by eight horses and pushed by two elephants. From the crate a gray trunk snaked out, waving as if testing the air. When dusk gathered as the crate arrived at the entrance to Madison Square Garden, and proved too small for the procession to enter, V.A. was at last convinced they had to go home, if only because they needed warmth, food, and a toilet.

Father was away as he so often was, and Mother hadn't missed him, as so often she didn't. In the huge kitchen, V.A. stood on a chair and regaled the servants with the wonders he'd witnessed, Sotheby happy to allow him the spotlight. V.A. spoke the gruff voices of the dockworkers, the high-pitched squeaks of women and girls gasping at a crate larger than any had ever seen before, the neighs of straining horses, and Jumbo's deep, rumbling trumpet.

It was at that moment that young V.A. Vandevere knew he wanted P.T. Barnum's job. But he had no idea how to get it.

Now, recalling it all, V.A. realized his father had never known of this, and he had never meant for him to know.

His father's eyes were glistening. Unlike other men, alcohol didn't dull them; they became sharper, more pointed and vicious. But even as his mouth opened, revealing his teeth brown from cigars, the crack of Remington's shot startled him and made him straighten up, away from his son.

"Circuses are for children," A.E. sneered.

Trying to keep sullenness from his tone, V.A. asked, "What does a _man_ do for entertainment?"

J.G. Remington's barking guffaw made his jump. "I saw a fine show. Last June."

The attorneys and bankers snickered with dark amusement, knowing to what he referred.

Remington leaned on his cue as his black eyes considered the boy with condescension. "A one-man dance. Eh? Done at the end of a _rope_. With a black hood over the head."

"They let the bastard live longer than he deserved," intoned J.P Morgan, a man V.A. only knew as having something to do with railroads.

"His lawyers might not have thought so," said A.E. as he chose the spot for the cue ball. "I imagine they were paid by the hour."

Avaricious laughter filled the smoky room, the distraction his father wanted, V.A. noted, for a shot that sunk two balls in separate pockets. Remington's grim chuckle ceased as he suspiciously eyed the younger man.

V.A. paled. He read Father's newspapers when he could. No doubt the banker was referring to the trial and execution of Charles Guiteau, who had assassinated President Garfield last year. The papers had been full of etchings of the dead assassin danging beneath the gallows while a doctor pressed his ear to the body to be sure the heart had stopped.

The idea that such a thing should be preferable to the magnificent miracle of Jumbo irked V.A. With feigned, but barbed, innocence, he inquired, "Was not Guiteau himself a lawyer? Like you?"

The laughter stopped.

"Got some mouth," said Remington, pointedly.

"His mother coddles him." With hot, liquor-stench breath A.E. added, "That ends after tonight."

Dread seeped into the boy's cold skin. His father's vengeance was spiteful, vindictive, and intractable. V.A.'s only chance was if Father became so sodden and his hangover so miserable that by morning he forgot about his son's impertinence.

"May I refill your glasses, sirs?" V.A. offered, to work toward that end.

Having observed Sotheby many times, the son dutifully filled his father's glass to the brim, then the other men's, of whatever it was they were particularly imbibing in.

"So what have you been dabbling in, Remington?" J.P. Morgan sounded bored. "I assure you that man, Tesla, is worth a look. I was at the Paris Opera House in April. The lights he installed!"

"The man's farfetched," Remington stated with the weight of granite. "Anyone who says he looked at the setting sun and had a vision? Then recited Goethe? _Lunatic_. I put my money in Edison. The Pearl Street Station. Fuck lighting the hoity-toity going to hear fat Italians screech in Paris."

V.A. had heard his father utter that forbidden word in the depths of drink, but never a man who seemed sober.

"You know what needs light? Every day people. Going about their lives. Lights at night, clean, not stinking of gas. They work later and longer! They go shopping. They spend money. That's the future!"

"I heard tomorrow will be lit an electric Christmas tree," said Vanderbilt.

Everyone swung their attention to him. "What?" A.E. scoffed. "How so? Wires in a tree? It'd burn!"

"Colored glass bulbs," countered Vanderbilt. "I have it on good authority. It's in the parlor of Edward Hibberd Johnson, one of Edison's men. A wire with bulbs is woven into the branches, and when switched on will glow red, white, and blue." He paused for effect and added, "And they twinkle while the tree turns."

V.A.'s deep blue eyes widened and shone in the room lit only by gas and the burning logs in the fireplace. 

Secretly, V.A. longed to see the dynamos of the first commercial power plant in America. For now, only 82 people benefited from its power. _Think of it!_ V.A. thought. _With more dynamos, entire streets could be lit! Apartments! Houses, like this one!_

Having no concept of finance, only that his mother spent however and whenever it pleased her, which was daily, and his father snarled at never having as much as his talent and brilliant legal mind deserved, the boy's plans ran free of limitation. In his grand imagination towers of pleasure rose, brazen with light, and giant cloth canopies like Barnum's were filled to bursting with electric illumination! Why couldn't it happen? If one building could have lights, then another, and another! Why have only red, white and blue lights? Why not every color of the rainbow? Not just in trees, but in towers and up lampposts! A small, happy exhale escaped him as his mind painted scenes better than any play or circus he'd ever seen. The world was changing! Miracles were happening, here and now! More than anything he wanted to be a part of it!

"Will Jumbo perform under electric lights?" V.A. blurted, hopeful.

"Enough about that stinking elephant." A.E.'s growl slurred very slightly. This warned his son that he was nearing the crest, from which he'd rapidly plummet into acidic humor and argumentativeness.

"Bringing in foreign elephants," grunted Calhoun.

 _It's not as if they can capture a native one_ , V.A. thought as he replaced the stopper in the crystal decanter of cognac.

Remington slaughtered three balls in a row and smiled smugly at A.E. To all he declared, "Should be treated like the Chinese."

"Hear, hear," bellowed Taft. "Thank god for the Exclusion Act. No more of the yellow bastards getting in."

"God damn immigrants are seething across America like rats." Another lawyer, older, tall, bald, named Baxter, sat by the fire in the oxblood wing chair, nodding in agreement with himself. "This is why I was a member of the American Party back in '52! If we'd won out our nation would be free of all these foreigners! They bring nothing but disease and ignorance. They're criminals and rapists. Especially the Irish! If England doesn't deem them worthy of attention and care, why are _we_ to tend to them?"

Surreptitiously, V.A. glanced at his father. The man was smiling in agreement with the murmur of the men as he framed his next shot. Nowhere was there a hint he was thinking of the stories he'd bragged to the boy about how, in his birth year of 1852, after his father's family arrived in New York from a country he refused to name, his own father had vanished into the great teeming city without a word, to seek his fortune unburdened of wife and baby. Until recently V.A. had thought nothing of the occasional Gaelic words his father effortlessly spoke with the rough, burly men who came to shoot pool and sell liquor. Now, he noted how the words were never uttered in this kind of company.

A small anger seeped into the boy. What would the circus he loved and cherished be without the wonderful performers and animals from far off lands? One afternoon, V.A. had volunteered to hand out promotional flyers if the circus manager would allow him to wander its grounds. Staying for a performance was impossible; his parents expected him. But for two glorious hours V.A. hawked pamphlets in the working-class voice his father only used when no attorneys and bankers were around, the voice that signaled to the people passing that he was one of them. After, he explored before and behind the tents as eagerly as some search for gold. He heard languages he never had before. Most wonderful of all, behind one of the performers' tents he came across the man whose face he recognized from a poster as a snake charmer from India. The gentleman was with a woman in clothes strange and colorful, with a gold ring though one nostril, with gorgeous black eyes and black hair that flowed freely to her hips. V.A. had muttered, "Beautiful," then felt ashamed. Both performers smiled warmly and offered him a tin plate of food he'd never seen before. V.A. deemed it the most delicious thing ever created. Sotheby later told him the white grain was rice, and the gold-red sauce was most likely curry.

The circus people were hard-working and talented in magic that brought delight. How was this detrimental to America? How cold and lonely and boring life was when they weren't around!

With a tremor of rage, V.A. said, "But Mrs. Wong does our laundry."

His father's head swiveled slowly. His face darkened.

Standing his ground, the boy continued. "Mr. Esposito cooks for us some days. Mr. Abramovich checks your accounts. And Mrs. O'Shannessy---"

The power of his father's backhand across his face knocked him back against the small, black lacquer table that held the decanters. A crystal tumbler shattered on the floor.

V.A. knew better than to place his shaking hand on his cheek. He slowly righted himself.

His father's soft voice was like leaking gas. "Anything else?"

V.A. shook his head ever so slightly as half his face throbbed.

The men drank and inhaled on their cigars. The Steward calmly pulled the bell rope to summon the footman.

"This. _This_ is why I'm not having children." Remington's malicious expression was salt ground into the wound.

Taft grunted, "How will you manage _that?_ I imagine your pretty little wife isn't for mere appearances."  


"There are ways." The banker's voice lowered, as if afraid his words would float out of the room. "A doctor. I know one. In Chicago. In his prison ward he does a surgery...down there...to correct racial degeneration and births of criminals. But for this," the man rubbed his first two fingers against his thumb, the gesture to indicate money, "he'll make sure no seed gets through."

"You'll lose your manhood," declared Baxter, appalled.

"The opposite! His studies prove it! A man gains twice the pleasure and potency!" With a leer he added, " _I_ can attest to it."

V.A. had no idea what they were talking bout, and he didn't care. His effort was concentrated on keeping the gathering wetness in his eyes from brimming over. V.A. turned to hide his face as Sotheby hurried into the room in response to the bell rope.

A.E.'s eyes burned at V.A. as he asked Remington, "This surgery works?"

Remington's eye teeth showed when he grinned. "I assure you, gentleman, the only bastard with my surname is me."

The men laughed heartily as the Steward brought the young footman a small whisk broom and a brass dustpan. Sotheby quickly gathered up all the crystal shards, which twinkled rainbows in the firelight.

"Had I but known," A.E. hissed at his son. "What needs a man an heir who'll never do anything but disappoint him?" Louder, he ordered, "Get back to the women."

"Yes, Father." V.A. stepped forward. "Good evening, gentlemen." He bowed from the neck, turned in place, and walked out the door.

Footsteps followed him. A quiet voice offered, "I will send Martha to fetch a chunk of ice you can press against your--"

"I am quite _fine_ , Sotheby." V.A. picked up his pace.

When he entered the Living Room the women's lively conversations stumbled to a murmur.

Smiling hurt V.A.'s face. He bowed from the neck. "I've been charged to entertain you, if you wish."

Mother tilted her head and squinted, then waved her hand as if what she saw was a trick of the light. "What shall we have? Oh, the _Wassail Song!_ Sotheby, refills all round while my son plays!"

V.A. Vandevere did not raise his head when he felt Mrs. Remington's soft, inquisitive gaze on his face. He selected the music sheet and played, bright and joyful, even as the swelling around his left eye made reading the notes difficult. The gaiety of the music, loud enough to be heard in the Billiard Room, was his vengeance. He could hope for no other.

* * *

"Happy Christmas, Master Vandevere."

V.A. blinked from under his comforter as Sotheby pulled back the thick, creme-colored velvet drapes with gold fringe. The light was wan through the thin gray clouds.

"Merry Christmas," the boy replied, sitting up. His face was sore, but no longer throbbed. V.A. threw back his covers, slipped his feet into their shearling slippers, and reached under his bed as the young footman stoked the previous evening's coals.

Sotheby stood to see the box held out to him, wrapped in gold-and-red-velvet William Morris wallpaper and tied with thin gold ribbon. He knew the younger boy would brook no protest.

"Sir," he whispered, admiring the box's contents.

"Of course you can't ever wear them here," V.A. said of the gold cuff links engraved with a capital S, and the fine spats.

As the older boy took out the leather-bound book from beneath the spats, his eyes widened. "How did you ever...?"

V.A. grinned at the first edition of Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass._ "The Taft's footman is an honorable lad," he whispered. "He lost his bet with my Disappearing Coin Trick and fetched my price from the study. Even if Mr. Taft _should_ notice it missing. he'll not ask around for it. He would not want anyone to know he owns it." He added, eagerly, "You must tell me if it deserves being banned by all the libraries and bookshops. Hide it well!"

The boys giggled self-consciously.

"You're expected in the Living Room," said Sotheby, securing the book under the tissue which wrapped his other presents." His long face turned solemn. "Your Father is there."

V.A.'s delight shattered like the crystal tumbler.

* * *

"My V.A.!" From the settee by the tree his mother tittered with delight as her son entered, dressed in a proper camel hair suit, his wavy chestnut hair tamed by pomade. She clapped her hands on either side of his face and grinned. "The swelling from your fall has gone down! Very good! I was afraid you wouldn't be fit to be seen in church today."

The boy involuntarily paused, then smiled. "The fall. Yes, Mother. I'm quite fine."

"Merry Christmas," said his father from the chair by the fireplace.

Most Christmases Father was in bed until well past noon, sleeping off the indulgences of Christmas Eve. Mother always made excuses to the Episcopal priest for his absence. V.A. had hoped that would be the case today.

But A.E. Vandevere sat in his pajamas and smoking jacket, his face flushed, rough stubble around his mustache and jaw. His eyes fixed on his son. "See what Santa Claus brought you."

Holding his breath, V.A. turned to where his father's red-rimmed eyes pointed.

The piano was gone.

In its place were two boxes, one small and square, one rectangular, long, and narrow.

When and how the grand piano had been taken away, and to where, V.A. couldn't guess, and dared not ask. Instinctively he knew he would never see it again.

Carefully, his parents' eyes soldered on him, V.A. sat on the Persian rug and unwrapped the smaller box. He pulled away the tissue paper, forced an appreciative smile, and lifted out his present.

"Oh! How sweet!" his mother laughed, clapping. It was quiet clear she had no hand in choosing his gifts, and knew no better than he what they were.

V.A. held the wooden elephant on its platform, which had metal wheels and a rope pull. The elephant's lithographed red blanket read JUMBO.

A.E.'s tone was as viscous and treacherous as pine sap trapping an insect. "So now you can indulge in your fancy for the circus whenever you please. You can pull it around the house. Or down the front walk. Had you any friends, they'd be _greatly_ amused. Why, they'd even ask for _turns!_ "

"Thank you," V.A. said, his throat as dry and scratchy as sandpaper..

"Open the second." His father's voice was barbed.

With dread, V.A. lifted the lid and parted the tissue.

"Oh! It's red!" His mother giggled with delight. "You haven't a red one!"

The jacket was indeed brick red. But instead of trousers, which V.A. had been wearing for a year, there were short pants. Mother didn't notice, being too enthralled by the lovely velvet and knee-high striped socks.

V.A. obediently looked his father in the eye, but his mouth fought against any expected expression of gratitude, however insincere. His hands trembled as he clutched the knee-breeches.

His father's pupils sucked away all light like a bottomless pit. His snarling grin revealed tobacco-stained teeth. "I was wrong to think you were a _man_."

"Put them on!" his mother insisted.

Sotheby gave V.A. privacy to change in his room.

He stood before Father ramrod straight, dry eyed, chin a little higher than Father liked. Father's nostrils flared once, then an awful smile crept across his lips already wet with brandy.

V.A. walked with his Mother into church. Everyone noted the short pants. Girls leaned together to whisper, and boys and young men sniggered at the fellow's demotion.

From that moment, V.A. Vandevere knew he could handle any public humiliation with his head high. He thanked his father for it, and vowed to never forget.

* * *

 **V.A.V. Enterprises, the office of V.A. Vandevere, the Power Tower, Dreamland, New York City. 1920.**

WONDER ELEPHANT SOARS TO FAME! the New York Heralds' headline shouted. _MIRACLE MAMMOTH STARTLES WORLD! OUR REPORTER ATTESTS: 'THE TALE OF DUMBO IS TRUE!'_

V.A. Vandevere sat at his desk, relaxed in his shirtsleeves in the early morning sunlight slanting in through the huge, round window behind him. He heard the _ping_ of the elevator door opening, and snapped his newspaper down to see over it.

Sotheby stood at attention, his hands clasped behind his back. His gray eyebrows raised in query.

"Sotheby, cancel my dinner with the president. We've got business with an elephant."

V.A.'s personal assistant and right-hand-man nodded, turned in place, then paused. He took a left into the short corridor to his own office, and returned with a handful of envelopes. "The morning's personal mail, sir."

"Hm." Bags of letters addressed variously to _The Emperor of Entertainment c/o Dreamland, The Master of Dreamland, The Honorable VAV New York City_ , and other fan mail were dealt with by V.A.'s secretaries. Only mail deemed for his eyes only was given directly to him.

As Sotheby left V.A. took out his letter opener, which had been a small, scale model for the sword-blade sheathed inside his walking stick, and poised it as he gazed over the addresses. He recognized the names a two Universal Studios starlets, and the stiffness of their envelopes hinted at provocative photo-cards with titillating inscriptions within. This could be promising; he was bored with his current liaisons.

A ragged envelope of cheap paper caught his eye. Suspicious, he drew a deep breath and turned the envelope over.  
  


_Mr. VA Vandevere  
My SON  
Dreamland  
New York City  
  
_

Sneering, V.A. eviscerated the envelope. A small note fell from it. The tycoon held one corner between his forefinger and thumb, as if it carried disease.

 _My Dear Son,_

 _Again I am in dire straits. Again I call upon your bountiful generosity toward Your Old Man. I am on my knees before you. The run in Montana did not pan out nor in the Dakotas. I pray I find you in a gracious and merciful heart. Think but of your Dear Father in begger's clothes. Up from Joplin comes word of an elephant who flies, and if this be not a sensational fabrication of the other gold diggers come from there I should humbly recommend you seek out the truth. If it be to your profit, remember kindly it was Your Father who set you on the trail, and send back by earliest post such compensation worthy of the man who raised you._

 _With deepest and sincerest regards and respect  
Your Dear Father_

 _A.E. Vandevere_

With a tiny key from a tiny key-ring in his vest pocket, the impresario unlocked a slim drawer. The note with the shaky scrawl joined several others. As he shut the drawer and heard the finality of the lock's click, V.A. smiled and thought of exactly what he would fetch from his storage room.

* * *

The wind worked through the cracks of the windows in the boarding house. A.E. Vandevere stumbled up the rickety stairs and secured the door to his tiny room as well as it could be, gripping the box from New York as if it were precious gold he'd dredged from a sandy creek bed.

His son had never sent a box before, and of such a size! It shone with silver wrapping paper and was tied with gold ribbons. In the upper, left-hand corner was a printed address label which included a color picture of Dreamland's signatures, the Colosseum and the Power Tower. The senior Vandevere, aged seventy-two, sat on the edge of his bed, the rusty iron springs squeaking, and placed the precious object across his lap.

With liver-spotted hands and dirty nails he tore the paper and threw off the box's long, rectangular lid.

A.E. blinked rapidly as his grizzled face fell.

A faded wooden elephant on a wheeled platform, printed with a red blanket that said JUMBO, stared blindly up at him. Beneath it, slightly worn but well preserved, was a brick-red velvet boys jacket and knee-pants.

On top was a note on the finest white cardboard, with _VAV Enterprises_ emblazoned in gold across the top. In an elegant, cursive hand it said:

 _I was wrong to think you were a man._

* * *

V.A. Vandevere's luxurious personal train was half-way on its journey to Joplin, Missouri.

The Mastermind of Dreamland estimated the delivery time of the package with when he left New York, and that it must have been delivered today.

V.A.was smiling.

 **The End.**

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank Ariana Hale/arianatheangelword of Tumblr for the Ask about V.A.'s childhood Christmases which inspired this fic. It was just what I needed to write while I had a very bad flu for over a month! :-)
> 
> For the historically inclined:  
> About Jumbo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumbo  
> Jumbo's influence on Disney's original "Dumbo": https://barnum-museum.org/barnum-jumbo-dumbo/  
> The first Christmas tree with electric lights: https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-electric-christmas-tree-lights  
> The xenophobic, racist, anti-Catholic Know Nothings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing  
> America prejudice against the Irish: https://www.history.com/news/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis


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